Beauty, Mercy, Justice

Greed, Then And Now

While many say that today’s emergence of an economic elite resembles something from the Middle Ages, Sanford historian Laura Stokes says there is a world of difference in attitudes toward greed:

“…greed hasn’t always been popular in Western societies.

Stanford historian Laura Stokes is uncovering how attitudes toward “acceptable greed” have done a turnaround in the past 500 years. Self-serving behavior deemed necessary on Wall Street today might have been despised in medieval Europe. One might even have been murdered for using wealth as a justification for circumventing societal norms.

While businessmen in the Middle Ages did amass personal fortunes, open greed was unacceptable to the community and could even lead to murder.

Capitalism, Stokes has found, managed to flourish in the intensely community-conscious culture of medieval times. Men of business successfully built financial empires based on trade and credit, even though unbridled greed was universally condemned.

The question that perplexes Stokes, an assistant professor of history, is how such men could be admired by their peers, when greed was frowned upon.

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19 Responses

Interesting to note that Laura Stokes’ CV is almost entirely devoted to witchcraft.

I think that one of the factors that might be kept in mind here is that “greed” (especially in the sense we mean when considering capitalism – the desire to amass exponentially greater wealth and control over assets) was then immediately connected to ambition and there was in much of the West for much of the medieval period (though we see this lessening with time, certainly by the 14th century and the peasant revolts and the increase in free men this is waning) a stigma against trying to rise from one’s class or station. This applied generally and perhaps especially to the lower aristocracy. They were supposed to not seek social advancement, especially not overtly or explicitly. A great gain in wealth would leave them more powerful than their social superiors, and this would generally have been deemed an unacceptable state of affairs. Thus this disdain for greed is motivated, in large part, by social desires to keep people in their places. And considering that vast swaths of humanity were in positions which we might call socially enforced quasi-slavery, I’m not inclined to view such a posture toward “greed” as virtuous. It protected the powers that were, for a time anyway.

Congratulations, Mr. Owens. You were able to nearly pack every myth about the middle ages into that mess of a paragraph. The association between her other areas of interest and the quality of her argument was also a nice touch.

Tell us, do you have anything to write besides your silly regurgitation of the mythical narratives underpinning modern capitalism?

Owen White is writing myths, JJ? Maybe. I don’t know. I do know, however, that your response does absolutely nothing to refute what Owen is saying. It simply asserts that Owen is incorrect, and that, of course, is utterly unconvincing. Owen, at least, puts forward a plausible case for what he is saying.

(And oh, BTW, it also doesn’t help that you got his name flat wrong, but hey….)

My response lacks evidence because none is needed. As I stated, only asserts a problematic narrative without evidence of its own, one that mistakenly characterizes a period spanning over a thousand years and covering an entire continent as if such were homogeneous. To call this narrative “plausible” in any sense of the term is a grave mistake. It is the risible narrativization of an ideologue. And it is mere assertion. Thus, a lengthy response is not needed until he posts something more substantive.

Owen is viewing this through his Red spectacles, which makes everything look economic and about the structures of oppression. For this reason he cannot consider that maybe greed was condemned because the culture was permeated by a Christian ethos.
Honestly, Owen, I never hear you say that the Church was ever a force for goodness, only complacent in oppression and all sorts of evils. Which raises the obvious question: so why would you want to be a communicant in such an evil entity?

In the last two long threads, I offered more criticism of the left and of Marxism than any other participant in those threads offered of their own intellectual traditions/ideologies/worldviews. I noted areas where I felt Marx was wrong. I pointed to opposing tendencies within Marxism and within the radical left. I highlighted various aspects of left criticism of the left that I agreed with (for instance Fitch’s work which is a devastating critique of labor leadership in the last 2 generations). I sympathized with your own comments about the contemporary left and identity politics. Yet you and others here (say JJ on this thread) use language which suggests that I am in some singular fashion the ideologue in these conversations.

If distributism wants to stop being so darlingly campy and wants to wear the big girl panties of a serious political philosophy, it is going to have to stop being so fervently parochial and so lacking in self criticism.

I think unbiased readers may be inclined to think that my “Red spectacles” allow for a hell of a lot more variance of opinion and dissent from popular orthodoxies (including Marxist and leftist orthodoxies) than the distributist spectacles, the neo-Cath spectacles, and self-proclaimed thomist spectacles, and other spectacles about in these parts. Ask yourself, how do distributist spectacles make everything look?

In the first thread that started this conversation, I explicitly stated that the labor movement, feminism, and radical movements on the whole are unthinkable without Christianity (and thus without the Church), and that all ultimately owe their ethos to the Christian movement (and thus to the Church). I also praised the worker priests who lived and worked among the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

I engaged here because of an assertion regarding the left which I believe to be demonstratively false. The mostly amenable conversation kept going. In that conversation there was a bit of the usual cheerleading for the saccharine, anti-historical, dreamy, white middle class, hobbitshire romaniticism that seems to haunt especially American versions of distributist political inclination. In such a context of course I am going to stress a reality which will be perceived as “anti-Church” by people whose approach to the Church in society (especially in periods of history deemed “better” in some fashion or another when compared to our own) is romantic.

When some of my more zeitgeist and popularly minded commie friends start quoting Dawkins and other such utter pop atheist nonsense to me they accuse me of being “pro-Church” in my countering assessments, and this is the flip side of the coin here – their romantic anti-Christianity suggests a narrative in which pretty much nothing but harm has ever come from Christianity, and all anti-Christians take on a sacred victim role. When dealing with any romanticism (and for the record, most romantics today deny being romantics – romanticism perceives itself as realism today), one is going to come off as overly negative. A couple of weeks ago a “pro-gay” Christian friend of mine assured me that I was overly harsh and ideologically narrow in my criticism of the TV show Glee. Distributists might well learn that they are the political theory equivalent of being a Glee fan. The shire never existed. It never will in this world. We need to deal with verifiable, discernible, unsentimental reality when addressing social matters.

In any event, I’m not sure what armchair speculation about my motivations or allegiances has to do with these conversations. I love Jesus and Mary, in part because Jesus is going to damn the bourgeoisie after Mary mows them down with her sword, or at least that’s what I teach my kids in our home catechism classes.

Here is something Catholic I love – I love this quote:

“Bourgeois are by nature people who hate and destroy heavens. When they see a beautiful site, they have no more pressing dream than to cut the trees, dry up the springs, build streets, shops and urinals. They call this ceasing a business opportunity.”
— Léon Bloy

So when have I ever mentioned the Shire?
My comment about the spectacles did not negate the many great things you have written here, only how odd the analysis was of the Age of Faith, not even speculating, you know, that Christianity may just have had some influence on the condemnation of greed.
Your kids are getting a weird catechesis. Mary with a sword. That’s as odd as Bud McFarlane, author of the most gawd-awful novel ever, portraying righty Catholic heros going out to apocalyptic battle with a rosary in one hand and an assault rifle in the other.
Great quote from Bloy though.
Peace.

If you would like to take my comments out of their context to distort my position, by all means go ahead. It reflects poorly on you, not me. Nor does it add anything substantive to the post.

There is something called burden of proof. Mr. White responded, by his own admission, with an “unsophisticated generalization.” His comments relied on fallacious reasoning, such as attempting to delegitimize the argument that Stokes makes by implying that she is involved in witchcraft, and ahistorical generalization. As his comments were predicated upon an unsupported assertion based on transparently faulty reasoning, there is no burden on my part to provide a detailed evidential response until he first substantiates his claim. He needs to make an actual argument first to warrant a response. Therefore no evidence is required on my part. And you implicitly agree with this standard, as you are similarly not providing any evidence in your criticism of my response. Tu quoque and all that.

Nonetheless, you seem to be under the impression that there is some burden on my part. I suppose to silence your objections and demonstrate how risible Mr. White’s narrative really is, I could provide a brief comment in response to Mr. White’s characterization of the period as one of “socially enforced quasi-slavery.” I’m assuming by this he is talking about feudalism. Now, as a graduate student at a large university, I know a number of medievalists, both fellow graduate students and professors. They have a tendency of referring to this term as the “F-word” because the concept of feudalism and its ubiquity during the middle ages is a modern myth, treated as suspect since the publication of Elizabeth Brown’s “The Tyranny of a Construct” in The American Historical Review nearly four decades ago. If feudalism did exist, it was for short periods and confined only to certain areas. Thus the condition of “socially enforced quasi-slavery” that Mr. White refers to is a myth established in the popular imagination. This myth has its origins in 19th century liberal and Marxist narratives. It is outmoded and uninteresting.

There are other problems with Mr. White’s narrative. For instance, he claims, “Thus this disdain for greed is motivated, in large part, by social desires to keep people in their places.” This is a projection of contemporary views regarding self-interest and social advancement; it is a view that does not take into account the malleability of social customs and mores. Juliet Schor, a sociologist who studies work and leisure at Boston College, has written about how laborers during the middle ages tended to have a preference for maximizing leisure time over social-advancement — a preference still dominant in many European countries to this day. Likewise, he does himself no service when he accuses Mr. Nichols of generalizing about the middle ages himself. While it is true that no one economic system dominated medieval Europe, there were mores that were generally fixed. Just as there is a strong social prohibition against premeditated murder in contemporary America, there was an ethic that condemned greed. And this was similarly enshrined in law. In fact, Canon Law even permitted theft on the part of those who were starving and demanded that the wealthy share their wealth with the poor in times of need. If they didn’t the poor were permitted to condemn them in Church. For evidence, I would direct you to Gratian’s Decretum, particularly the distinctions on property. And, if you do, you will find that greed wasn’t condemned in law to keep the less wealthy down, but to protect the poor. The justifications for Canon laws governing property, restrictions on usury, theft, and more are all justified by references to scripture, the Latin Fathers, and Roman law. They are highly elaborate justifications that follow a very specific methodology. They are not motivated by a desire to keep the people down.

Of course, none of what I write above constitutes a thorough response. But as I previously wrote, such is not needed. The narrative that Mr. White provides is risible. There is no reason to take it seriously, as it relies on myths that are demonstrably false and discounted by actual scholars of the period as deeply unserious. That he asserts this narrative with such confidence is reason to discount him as an ideologue. And we have every reason to continue considering him as such, as his recent diatribe is similarly comical. Apparently, we are considered to be campy romantics for advocating a more communal economic arrangement, as if capitalism were universal and inevitable rather than a recent development that only just replaced more communal and humane economic modes of living.

And I am still waiting for him or you to make a comment that is actually substantive.

And because it was in canon law it must have been commonly practiced socially and tolerated by the elite. And of course other canons were not frequently used to keep peasants in their places. This is the problem when you take the syllogisms you learned from Sister Miriam Joseph and apply them to an analysis of history.

” Now, as a graduate student at a large university…” And there you go folks. By all means, Mr. JJ, I’m sure the medieval studies you have been exposed to at your large university is exemplary. And I’m sure your university is bigger than mine was.

At best, your comments are no less full of assertions than mine, whilst I at least provide more sources.

Even outside of the ever narrowing confines of the definition of fuedalism, I ask you this – would most peasants living in the middle ages be living in social conditions that we (as in, most Western people today) consider to be slavish, or essentially akin to slavery today? And yes, the quasi in quasi-slavery is meant to mean quasi.

I have no problem with devoting one’s scholarly interests on medieval witchcraft. I actually found her CV interesting, and read one of her papers yesterday. I assure you that I find the study of medieval study of witchcraft far less threatening than most on these threads. Try again you poor insufferable creature.

Do I have to repeat myself? My knowledge of medieval history comes from my limited exposure to actual medievalists. In fact, I learned much of this from an actual historian of Canon Law. I am not pulling it from my derrière, as you seem to be doing. There are no nuns involved, I assure you.

You also have a habit of misrepresenting others and resorting to poor reasoning in order to discredit those with whom you disagree. First, you sought to discredit Stokes by implying that she is involved with witchcraft. Now you seem to be implying that my argument is based on one from authority, while ignoring the more substantive points that I made in that same post. Then you have the temerity to claim that you have more sources. Care to actually substantiate your claims with them?

As for what is considered “slavish,” I would reject your preference for modern standards of what would constitute slavery, replete as they are with voluntaristic and nominalist assumptions. Why should we prefer modern bourgeois assumptions over Christian ones? I could easily pose the correlative question: how would those living today outside of “developed nations” and pre-moderns view our society? If David Graeber, an anthropologist who has actually studied such populations argues, they would consider wage labor–with its disconnect between ownership and labor–as structurally similar to slavery and a form of “social death.”

And, of course, I have to point out that you have not responded to any of my criticisms aside from ignoring my arguments and posing rhetorical questions in response, only demonstrating your ignorance in political and economic history. The ad hominem that you conclude your post with is thus expected, as you have little else to resort to and the quality of your character evinced in your prior posts is consistent with such rhetoric.

At this point there is very little else for me to write. To impartial eyes and educated minds, you have already adequately discredited yourself by your incuriousity and idealogical parochialism. Do yourself a favor and stop posting.

You haven’t actually made an argument. Nor have I. This is a blog thread. Both of us have made assertions, some with references to the work of scholars and to texts, most not. Your assertions come mixed in a wash of rambling, semi-coherent rage and the odd overuse of the word ‘risible’ and half of the issues you raise have essentially been raised in previous threads. You have spent far more words making assertions about me than you have assertions concerning medieval studies. After your ridiculous spewings, to note my use of ad hominem seems to verify Fr. Ned’s trolling thesis.

I made it clear in the last thread that most medievalists would not be keen on the generalizations taking place here. But note, I am not the only person making these generalizations. This thread stems from a post which makes massive generalizations about the medieval period (something I would bet has much more to do with the journalist than Laura Stokes – I’d bet Ms. Stokes would never present things in person as simplistically as they are presented in the brief article). I respond to the article’s generalizations with a more qualified generalization about much of the West for much of the medieval period. The only reason the medieval question came up in these threads was because of my assertion that no one (sane) today would actually want to return to social conditions in the medieval period (even laying aside technological reasons for not wanting to transport back in time), and this pining for the medieval period (even portions of it) and this use of it as a model for various “traditional Christian” social relations schemes is ridiculous. Thus the whole conversation begins and ends with modern parsings of the medieval period using decidedly modern means of analysis and comparison. How the medievals understood themselves and how they would understand our age is irrelevant in such a discussion.

For the last generation in academia, following pomo/poststructuralist fashions, there has been a fervent disdain for so called metanarrative. This isn’t just unsavory for Marxists, it’s also irritating for most traditional Christian intellectual postures. Thankfully, the crest of the wave is over and there seems to be increasing room again for the big theories. How the use of the social history of the medieval period relates to making generalizations about it was covered in the previous long thread. I’m not going to go over and over and over these issues, especially not for a (ad hominem alert) puerile grad school prick such as yourself.

The reference to St. Miriam has to do with how you present your assertions. She wrote “the book” on the trivium, at least it is so viewed in some conservative Catholic circles. You didn’t get the reference. So be it.

“Nonetheless, you seem to be under the impression that there is some burden on my part. ”

Why yes. As a matter of fact, I DO carry that impression. You assumed that burden when you presumed to comment. Simply saying to someone, “You’re wrong” never adds anything to any discussion and it is usually not tolerated in face-to-face conversation. (If it is, this toleration is extended in consideration of the special needs of the person to whom it is given. Therefore, such consideration, perhaps better called “condescension” does absolutely nothing to reinforce the credibility of the person receiving it.) Therefore, it is not appropriate online either.

Oh, and BTW: both Owen and I are out here, commenting under our own identities. You can google us both and get some idea of who we are and where we are coming from. But who in the heck is “JJ”?

Except that I never simply asserted that was “wrong,” but instead exposed his faulty reasoning and generalizations for what they are. As I did not initially assert a counter-narrative, there was no burden of proof on my part. There still isn’t. At this point, I have to point out that you are engaged in precisely the same behavior as Mr. White: mischaracterization and misrepresentation.

And then you accuse me of condescension. Frankly, I find this accusation quite odd as you yourself are engaged in condescending commenting above: i.e., where you quote me out of context a few posts above. Again, Tu quoque.

And who cares if my comments are anonymous? It is permitted on this blog, after all. For my part as a graduate student, I will be seeking tenure one day at a University and do not particularly want a trail of posts online for prospective employers to read. This really is little more than caviling on your part.

Finally, the accusation that I am a troll is rather misplaced, to put it kindly. I am the only one who has actually made a substantive argument in the comments, which includes you.

“Congratulations, Mr. Owens. You were able to nearly pack every myth about the middle ages into that mess of a paragraph. The association between her other areas of interest and the quality of her argument was also a nice touch.

Tell us, do you have anything to write besides your silly regurgitation of the mythical narratives underpinning modern capitalism?”

= “You are wrong”.

And yes, by the conventions of normal conversation, such an assertion requires at least a hint of a counter-narrative.

“For my part as a graduate student, I will be seeking tenure one day at a University and do not particularly want a trail of posts online for prospective employers to read.”

Nice. Obviously little integrity and no courage.

“Finally, the accusation that I am a troll is rather misplaced, to put it kindly.”

I accused you of nothing. I asked a question and raised a possibility, a possibility that the form and (lack of) content of your comments suggested to me.

And also, it’s “Blevins” not “Belvins”. I guess you must have a problem with names, seeing that you also got Owen’s name wrong initially.

He asserted a narrative. I criticized that narrative. There is no burden of proof on my part unless I present a counternarrative, which I did not. (Frankly, I’m suspicious of historical narratives of such overarching nature to begin with.) This is how it works in academic discourse and in debate. With all due respect, your behavior is unbecoming for a man of your station. You have, despite your denials, suggested that I am a “paid troll.” In requiring me to present a counter-narrative with my own arguments, you hold me to standard that you do not even apply to yourself. (Where is your counter-narrative? As you wrote, “such an assertion requires at least a hint of a counter-narrative.”) Now I am accused of lacking integrity and courage by not using my real name, a standard which is not generally expected on the internet. Those are harsh words over such a trivial matter. Frankly, from my perspective, it appears that you are more interested in caviling my views and behavior than constructively engaging my criticisms. Fair enough. I’m off then. I have little patience for double standards. And I’m not interested in trading barbs with a priest–no matter the quality and character of his comments.

Trivial? No, JJ. Not trivial at all. I engaged in this exchange because this kind of nonsense happens on the Internet all the time when it would not be tolerated in face-to-face conversation, and I am extremely tired of it. Unfortunately, it usually seems to involve people, often anonymous people, whose intellectual capacity apparently far outpaces their social skills. Would that such people would get offline for a while, spend some time with a therapist or some other professional who can help them bring the latter up to something approaching the former; being bright, you see, is really no excuse for being out of touch with the emotions and perceptions of the people around them.